


born again is born without a skin

by alamorn



Category: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Moderate Body Horror, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 19:29:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20857049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: The Mage needs Arthur's help to return the Darklands to Avalon. But the price of rebirth is always high.





	born again is born without a skin

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Leonard Cohen's "Treaty"
> 
> Written for the Whumptober prompt "Shaking Hands" and it kind of grew out of control on me.

The sun was low in the sky, spilling warm and golden through the open doors of the castle at Camelot, and the Mage's shadow stretched from her feet at the door all the way to the empty throne. She always had known how to make an entrance.

The hood of her cloak was still pulled up, casting her face into deep shadow, but her eyes shown with an animal light. Arthur leaned back from his seat at the Table.

"If you have bad news, can it wait?" he called. "I'm about to win this round."

"You are not," Goosefat said, putting his cards down -- face down, Arthur noted -- and standing to sketch a bow. "Mage."

She inclined her head, waiting a moment longer before she walked in. When she lifted her chin once more, her eyes were her own. He wondered who she'd been looking out of, and why.

Bedivere met her as she walked and guided her to the Table, giving her his own seat -- his cards had been discarded face up, and they were a losing hand. "What's the news, Mage?" he asked.

She looked suddenly at Arthur, her gaze as piercing as he remembered. "I need your help."

"Who doesn't?" he asked. "I'm in very high demand these days."

The Mage's gaze didn't waver. She was implacable as always. She did not ask again, just looked steadily at him until he made a show of sighing. "I am at your disposal."

"You will not like it," she said dourly.

He shrugged. "I don't like most of the things you ask me to do. I still do them."

Goosefat snorted, apparently remembering well Arthur's initial reluctance. As he should, having caught the brunt of it.

"The isle," she said. "I would return it to its former state."

Bedivere sucked a breath through his teeth. "You do not ask small favors."

"The isle," Arthur repeated, ignoring Bedivere for the moment, but aware, as always of his judgment and knowledge, "this would be the isle you sent me to in order to, and I quote, kill part of me?"

"That isle, yes," she said, unflinching as always. He wondered if she had ever told a lie, and how one would tell, when each word punched out of her as if she had only a limited store and once spent they were gone forever.

"The isle with all the nasty critters, including that very large snake you summoned? The mountain made of the bones of your countryfolk?"

"Don't play stupid," Bedivere said. "If you don't help her, she'll go alone. Won't you?"

The Mage inclined her head curtly.

Arthur studied her, the way the lines of exhaustion beneath her eyes had grown deeper, the tension of her mouth tighter. "I already said yes," he said, balancing his weight on his elbows, faking ease. "Just like to know what I'm getting myself into before I'm knee deep."

"When can you leave?" she asked, the first concession she had allowed to his position.

He glanced at Bedivere for an answer to that; in truth, Bedivere was more King than Arthur, if only because Bedivere had more patience for it. Arthur prided himself that he was not a terrible king, but he was easily angered and unused to sending others to do his dirty work. He understood money, and grudges, and _people_, but he had no practice with _nobles_, who were a different species entirely, and he had less inclination to learn. And so he ruled by committee, which left him blessedly free of more than superficial interactions with the gentry.

"It will never be convenient," Bedivere said. "When do you need him?"

The Mage stared out the door as if any roof over her head was an insult to her nature. Maybe it was; Arthur didn't know the social mores of mages any better than nobles. "The isle cannot grow worse," she said. It sounded like it hurt, more than her speech usually did. Arthur understood painful admissions, and graciously sympathized. "I would like to see it grow better."

Bedivere discussed quietly with the rest of the present Table, then said, "The end of the week at the earliest. How long will you keep him?"

"And when do you send a search party?" Arthur asked, amused that Bedivere would sign his king over so quickly after how hard he had worked to instate him.

"She's the only one capable of opening the gate," Bedivere said. "Once you go, you must come back of your own power."

"Oh, wonderful news," Arthur said. "I love some good high stakes. Reminds me of my gambling days."

Kay snorted. "You gamble every week at your meeting with the generals."

Arthur waved a hand in the air, swatting the accusations aside. "I didn't say they were _over_."

"You will need Excalibur," the Mage said, and Arthur remembered the wolves, the bats, the spiders, all of the creatures that had flown and run and crawled and tried to kill him. Yes, he certainly would. The Mage leveled her gaze at Bedivere and he weathered it as well as he did all storms. "A month," she said. "If we are not back by then, begin your search for a new king."

Arthur propped his chin on his fist, elbow planted on the table. "Have I told you lately how I admire your cheery outlook?"

"Lying will do none of us any favors," she said. "I'll return at the end of the week." She paused. "Thank you." And then, as if gratitude were embarrassing, she stood to leave.

"My pleasure," Arthur called after her.

\--

When she returned, the council had bled Arthur for any information or opinion they might possibly need over the course of the next month, and his pack was heavy with food, Excalibur at his hip. Bedivere took them to the entrance to the isle, but this time he did not tell Arthur how afraid he should be. Arthur already knew. And if he hadn't, the way the Mage sat, tense and quiet, would have tipped him off. He'd thought she had a good poker face; it turned out he just hadn't seen what a bad hand looked like for her.

This time, when she sent him to the badlands, she was next to him.

Her face upon seeing the devastation was its own map of agony. "This was your home?" he asked quietly, though he was fairly certain he knew the answer.

"Yes," she said. Then, "We can begin here."

"Tell me what to do," he said.

"If anything comes, keep it off me," she said, and knelt in the center of the stone circle, drawing various herbs from her inner pockets.

He left her to it, sitting just outside of the circle on dark surge of granite, Excalibur naked across his knees. He'd not forgotten the despair of the isle, but he _had_ forgotten how it sat in the mouth like a stone. The air was thick with all the blood that had been shed, thick and wet. It was the air that came before a storm, though he was not certain if there was a storm coming, or if the one that Mordred brought had never left.

When he glanced over his shoulder, she had started a fire and was working over a small iron pot, speaking in a language he couldn't speak and didn't want to. It was a language of the dead, he could tell that from the way it clawed out of her. He was only surprised that she wasn't spitting blood -- the words were so sharp and harsh that he half-expected them to be physical, jagged rocks rattling their way out of her throat.

But this was an island of the dead, and the monsters were coming, drawn by her work, or her tongue, or perhaps just the presence of beating hearts, here in this place of misery. The wolves were coming, larger by far than any wolves in England, beasts that towered as tall at the shoulder as Arthur was, mouths full of vicious teeth, drool running in ropes. To them, the meal had already been served.

Arthur wrapped his hand around Excalibur's hilt, allowed the world to slow. Everything went sharp, edged with blue. The moisture in the air became visible, distinct droplets, and he moved through them with an unrighteous sort of joy. Arthur liked to be the best. He always had. And with Excalibur in his hand, the rest of the world wasn't even close.

He moved through the pack like a whirlwind, blood and fur caught in his wake, and when he released his grip, the isle of the dead had gained a pack of ghosts.

Once he had cleaned Excalibur, glancing over at the Mage to see if she had even noticed the attack (she hadn't), he got around to starting his own fire. He used tinder and fuel he'd brought from Camelot, since everything here was too soaked to light, and built it up to a decent blaze before he pulled one of the wolves over to butcher for meat. Bedivere had taken him hunting, repeatedly, insisting that it was a skill he would need, and Arthur's city-boy soul had rebelled at every trip, but he was grudgingly grateful now. Fresh meat was likely to be better than the jerky they had brought, though Arthur had never eaten wolf before and did not have high expectations for flavor.

When dinner was cooking, he began to drag the remaining bodies to the cliff edge and tossed them over. If they were going to spend the night here, and it seemed likely, he didn't want to sleep next to corpses.

The meat finished cooking, and the Mage still wasn't done with her ritual. Though at least she seemed to have made progress. Arthur chewed on his wolf -- gamey -- and watched as she went from stone to stone, smearing each with a paste that smelled pungently herbal even from this distance. When she finished with that, she returned to the center and drew a short knife.

With no ceremony whatsoever, she slashed the back of her wrist and turned her hand to drip blood on the wet grass as she walked in a tight spiral from the center to the outer edge.

When she passed the final stone, they all lit suddenly with a pale luminescence, unearthly and unsettling. The Mage spoke a single harsh word, and the light flared a shade brighter and went out. When it was done, or he assumed it was done, she walked from the circle to join him.

He passed her a skewer of wolf. "One down?" he asked.

She stared at the meat, uncomprehending for a moment, then blinked and seemed to come a little bit more back to him. She took a bite, made a face, and took another, chewing contemplatively. She didn't speak, just sat and worked her way through what he had given her with a singleminded determination.

When she sat, he took the arm she had cut and began to clean the wound with the things he had set out while he was waiting. The cut wasn't long, going from one side of her thin wrist straight to the other, and it wasn't that deep. He was surprised it had bled as much as it had, looking at it -- she must have done something to prevent clotting. Despite how minor it was, and how it seemed to have clotted since she left the circle, her hand was covered in blood, tacky as it dried. He cleaned it thoroughly, working the washcloth between her fingers and scrubbing gently.

When he finished with that, he wrapped the cut, shallow as it was, in a thin layer of bandage, to keep it clean. When he'd tied that, he looked up and found her gaze on him, more intent than he'd thought she had the energy for.

Arthur was used to people finding him attractive. He was used to people looking at him, whether for his looks or his crown, or the fact that he had quite a lot of difficulty with keeping his mouth closed. He was used to people thinking they could talk something out of him. He wasn't used to being looked at like this, like she could see inside him, like his flesh was as permeable to her as the limits of reality. She looked at him like she knew what he'd been thinking, as he sat and waited, knew exactly why he'd said yes to this trip, knew what he wanted to do to her, and what he wanted her to do to him.

She looked at him like she _knew_ him, in the way that he worked so hard to keep anyone from ever knowing him.

It frightened him. It turned him on a bit, too, if he was honest. So, as usual when he found things that cut too close to the bone, he deflected. "If you keep doing this, you'll look a better warrior than dear old Bedivere, and you know how protective he is of his reputation. You're fixing to get yourself challenged to a duel."

She looked at the fire he'd made and the tension went out of him. "Thank you," she said. 

\--

There were, it turned out, four more circles that needed to be cleansed. The one they had entered via was at the southernmost tip of the isle, and the remaining ones were at the other cardinal directions, and the highest point of the isle.

"It will be easiest to circumnavigate," the Mage said, hood pulled up to protect against the constant whistling of the wind. "The beasts cluster more tightly in the center."

"That's advice I could have used before my first visit," Arthur said, tightening the final strap on his pack and hoisting it.

"It would have defeated the purpose," she said absently and began to walk, following the western edge of the cliff. A lefthand magic, he supposed. Hers seemed to be. He'd hear stories of such things, of course, the monsters under the bed, the women in the water, ready to drag men under. Arthur had been dragged under, and it had been a gift.

"Tell me about magic," he said, walking before her and turning to walk backwards. They were far enough from the edge that he wasn't worried about falling, but he was fairly certain she would warn him if he were at risk.

Her brows furrowed. "What... do you want to know?"

"Is it true you can walk through dreams?" he asked. "Because you've been walking through mine."

She snorted.

Arthur grinned lopsidedly at her. "No, really, though. Dreamwalking?"

"Yes," she said.

"So, all this time, you've been making the moves on me and I've just been too shy to follow up?" he said. "I'm so sorry, Mage, I thought it was all in my head."

"If I were in you dreams," she said, lip curling in something that could have been a snarl, "you would have no questions."

"So not naked?" Arthur teased.

"Only," she said, "if you were very lucky."

Arthur stumbled, and the Mage swept past him, her face as stern as always. If he wasn't used to her, he wouldn't have been sure she was flirting. As it was, he _wasn't_ sure. He didn't think it could be anything else, but she was such a cipher, so aggressively closed off, even after all they had shared, that he found himself doubting he had understood correctly. "Wait," he said. "What? What was that?"

She rolled her eyes at him and walked faster. Her eagle screamed above them.

"I could have sworn you were flirting with me just now," he said, "and, all due respect, I thought we had an understanding. I needle you, you dump me on my ass. At no point do you _enjoy_ it."

"Oh?" she said, as if they were having an academic discussion. "Does Excalibur read minds now?"

"_Mage_," he said, grinning widely. "You _like_ me."

"You are the king."

He waved a hand. "It's got nothing to do with that. Mage, do you... do you think I'm pretty?"

"This is unbecoming," she told him, but there was a blush burning high in her cheeks, bright spots of color.

"You _do_," he crowed. "Well, thank you, I try to keep myself together. Do you like the scent I've been using lately? Bedivere recommended it, thought that it smelled all kingly, whatever that is. It's expensive, certainly, which I suppose is the same thing."

She stopped, looking at him with her chin raised.

"What?" he said, worried, but not too badly, that he had pushed her too far.

She took a swift stride forward, fisting her hand in the front of his padded overshirt, and drawing herself up on her toes. Her nose skimmed the side of his neck, brushed the hinge of his jaw. She sniffed, loudly, and released him, stepping back. He was gaping, he realized, but could not seem to stop.

"You smell like sweat and blood," she said. "I would not pay for another bottle."

She walked on without him and he stared, totally poleaxed.

Arthur liked to talk, and he often did it without thinking. He always had an endgame, but not with _friends_, not when he was talking just to talk. The Mage, it seemed, had her endgame firmly in view.

And Arthur was definitely amenable.

But this sort of game was more fun when played out. No point in rushing through.

\--

It was a long day's hike before they reached the westernmost circle. Arthur had allowed them to settle into an easy silence, busy as he was plotting his next moves. It was a game of teases and touches, and he had not realized she had such skill.

When they reached the circle, he helped her remove her pack and cloak, only smiling when she slid a suspicious sideways glance his way. "I'm no lady," she told him stiffly.

"Mages deserve more respect anyway," he said glibly, spreading her cloak over her pack so the damp patches where she'd sweated through would dry, at least a little. "What do ladies do? The whole nobility's a wash, if you ask me. _Don't_ remind me that I'm one of them now, it would be too cruel."

She scowled, flipping the cloak so she could retrieve what she needed from her pack and stalking into the center of the circle. "Keep them off me," she called and he waved her off, beginning to set up a fire ring, Excalibur laid bare within reach.

Without her cloak, the pale column of her neck glowed in the grey light of the late afternoon. Arthur found himself glancing over more than he should, his own neck itching with the phantom of her nose tracing its length. She was more than half wild, and he knew how animals protected their necks. He knew that he'd already given her his. 

It was cool enough that he found himself getting cold once he was still. He sat by his small fire, his back to the circle, and thought of what he would do to her, if she let him. It was hopeless to think of the other, of the things he would let her do to him. They had already crossed those boundaries, and there were no more left. He was hers to do with as she would.

A king was supposed to serve his people. This was just a more selfish version of that. And Arthur had always excelled at selfishness.

So he kept Excalibur within grasp, and his eyes on the horizon, and he thought of what he could do to crack that alabaster mask. Vulgarity wouldn't do it, he was certain. She had never seemed phased by anything without, and so it would have to come from within. He would have to make her want him, beyond dignity, beyond pride, as he wanted her.

The approach needed more thought. All day he'd been considering routes of seduction, and all of them had felt lacking. He was quite certain, after her little display, that the Mage was not _sexless_, but he also did not think taking his shirt off and striking a pose was the way to her heart. Which was unfortunate, because that would be easy.

Whatever magic she was doing to cleanse the circles, the animals of the island didn't like it. Tonight's guests were spiders, the size of large dogs, appearing suddenly from the crevices of the cliffs. One managed to sink its mandibles into the back of Arthur's arm before he realized they were there. He swore, grabbing Excalibur and sinking it into the hard exoskeleton, between the sets of glittering eyes. He shook the spider off, then turned for the circle.

A pale light shone between the stones, holding off the spiders as the Mage worked, seemingly unaware, but as Arthur watched it shimmered and failed and the spiders poured forward in the slow motion that Excalibur gifted him. Excalibur cut through the carapaces with no more difficulty than it cut through everything else, but there were so many.

One reached the Mage, and as Arthur started to lunge towards her, her hand flashed up, landing in the middle of the spider's head, and her eyes went black, glittering with hundreds of facets. The spider _screamed_ and Arthur sank Excalibur deep into its abdomen.

When he released Excalibur, he was breathless, and black tears were running down the Mage's face. "I didn't know you could move that fast," he said.

She wiped the black fluid from her face. It was thicker than tears. It looked like blood, or tar, or filth. It did not wipe off neatly, smearing across her cheeks. "I can't," she said. Then, "I have to begin again."

She sounded tired. _He_ was tired. "Eat first?" he suggested.

She shook her head and dismissed him, turning back to her work.

He watched her as she worked this time, scanning the quickly darkening horizon periodically. She worked faster this time, hands sure and steady, and when she walked her lefthand circle and the stones lit with magic, they were the only light aside from their fires.

When the stones flared and went dark, the Mage swayed, a dark spot among the splotches in his vision. When she turned towards him, he got her cloak ready for her and she shrugged into it gratefully, clutching it close around her. She didn't shiver, but she crouched into herself, close enough to the fire that he was almost afraid her knees would scorch.

"That took more out of you," he commented as lightly as he could, sliding her a plate of the dinner he'd made.

"Yes," she said. When he rolled his eyes at her, she continued, "I have to maintain them all until they're _all_ purified."

"Explain it to me like I'm a humble human," he said.

This time she was the one to roll her eyes. "I can take power from the land when I need to. But this... the land is taking power from me." She considered the flames for a moment, the grooves beneath her eyes etched deep in the flickering shadows. "When all the circles are cleansed, they will not need me. But while I'm purifying the land, their connections must run through me, or they will become contaminated once again."

"How much does it take out of you?" he asked, half as her friend, half as her king.

"Much," she said simply. "I told you I needed your help."

\--

As they set out for the northernmost circle, the Mage moved like her bones hurt. She looked consumed by what was happening within her, and Arthur realized, a little desperately, that she probably _was. _And so it would be up to him to draw her back from the maw. He could keep her safe from creatures without issue. Keeping her safe from her own magic was probably going to be quite a bit more difficult.

"I should know your name," he said. "After all we've been through together."

"I don't have one anymore," she said absently.

"Anymore? Well, what was it?" he asked. He wasn't helping her walk because he was fairly certain she would take it as an insult, but he was keeping an eye on her stride.

"I don't remember."

"You don't _remember_?" he said disbelievingly.

"I made a deal," she said. "My name for my survival."

Arthur took a moment to absorb that horror. "You should have a name," he said. "You survived. You should have a name."

She glanced curiously at him. "Do you have one for me?"

"I didn't see the conversation going this way," he told her, "but I know a lot of women's names, if you want me to list them."

"One a day," she said.

"Oh, you want me to _think_ about it," he said. "I see how it is." He had been planning on thinking it over anyway. Naming her seemed like a great honor, and it was one he wasn't going to take lightly. A name was an intimate thing at the best of times, and to give one to someone he so admired was... he wouldn't let her down.

And besides, most of the names he knew were _women_ he knew. Living or dead, it seemed wrong to give her a name that someone else wore, when she was so mulishly herself.

So he cast his mind to legends, myths, stories of women as unique and powerful as the Mage. "Diana?" he suggested, regretting it almost immediately. Diana was a Roman goddess, and they had nothing to do with the Romans here. Boudicea would be better; the Mage was not a conquerer but a _defender_.

Luckily, she agreed with him, shaking her head sharply. "Don't make me regret this."

"You don't regret anything about me," he said loftily. "You _like_ me."

"And I regret that," she told him, looking tragically serious.

"You have a sense of humor under there, don't you?" he accused. "And it's all at my expense. It's a wonder I help you with anything, it really is."

"Don't fish for compliments," she told him.

"Excuse me?" he asked, delighted.

She stopped to stare him down. "You want me to say nice things about you. I won't do it."

"Why not?" he asked, drawing close to her, closer than he would have a week ago. "I'll start. I'm very handsome, and twice as charming."

She rolled her eyes and turned her back to him, walking fast. "That's not what you value."

"Oh? What do I value?" he asked, catching up to her in a few long strides. He was teasing, still, but he was curious too. How well did she see him? How clear were her eyes?

"Power," she said. "And people. Dignity."

"I wouldn't call myself dignified," he said, pleased that she had him down.

"Image is everything to you," she said. "Don't be ashamed. It's true of everyone."

"Even you?" he asked.

"Without dignity, we are less than animals," she said, but didn't seem quite finished. He left the space for her to continue, biting back on his own impulse to fill the air with words. "I have been less than an animal. I would not be again."

"Mordred?" he asked.

"Yes."

Quietly, so that the whistling of the wind along the cliffs almost drowned him out, he asked, "What happened to you?"

The Mage stared out over the sea, the wind whipping the dark strands of her hair into tangles around her face. She was always pale, always drawn, but at that moment she looked inhuman, a marble statue carved and placed at the top of the cliffs to be worn down by the incessant sea breeze. She didn't blink for a long moment, and when she did, a tear ran down her cheek, though he wasn't certain if it was due to emotion or the harsh salt air.

"You climbed the mountain of the dead," she said eventually and he nodded, somehow sure that if he spoke, she would stop. "I was there. Vortigern was cruel and mad, but Mordred was more successful."

When she looked at him, her eyes were her own, but not; they belonged to the past, to the dead, to the name she had left behind. "I will not allow his to be the last word for Avalon."

"Avalon," Arthur said, "is that what this place was called, before?"

She nodded. "And it will be again."

"You should piss on his grave when you're done," he said, startling a huff of air out of her, something that might have been a laugh in someone else.

"If he had one, I would," she said.

"The faster we do this, the better, then," Arthur said. "Best not give him one more day than necessary."

"Thank you," she said, walking on.

It was the second time she had thanked him, and as with the first, it left him unsettled. That wasn't how they were supposed to be; he didn't get _thanked_ for things. She told him what to do, and so he did it. If she needed help, he would provide it. It was a given, it wasn't something he should be thanked for. Catching up, he said, "You'd do the same for me," which was part of what he was feeling, but not all of it.

\--

The view from the northern tip was bleak. The sea stretched out infinitely, gray and rough and all-consuming. The horizon was invisible, gray sky disappearing into gray water, all of it dull, even in the warm glow of sunset.

"Was it prettier, before?" Arthur asked, throwing down his pack and stretching his injured arm. He scanned the cliffs below them for spiders, then the plains behind them for wolves, and saw neither, but assumed both would appear quickly.

"Beautiful," she said, sounding distant. "Magic is the bones of this place. I can't describe it. But it was beautiful."

"Not half as beautiful as you, I bet," he said, just to get her to aim a dirty look at him. He succeeded; her look was dirty enough that he wanted to get her in a bath. With him, obviously, this wasn't altruistic on his part. He let himself fantasize about that idly for a minute, enjoying the concept of her skin bare and slippery, her legs wrapped around his waist, riding him leisurely in the big golden tub in his suite back at the castle. Or would she be quick and eager? She spent so much time in animals, after all, and he'd never seen an animal rut with tenderness. He could take her from behind, if she liked that, watch her clench her hands on the edge of the tub, suck bruises onto the back of her neck.

Something hard hit him in the face. "Ow," he complained, looking up at her.

"You're thinking too loudly," she said. "Stop."

"Only if you come over here and give me something else to think about," he said, leaning back on his hands and grinning up at her. He was half hard, and she could see it if she looked down the way he was inviting her to.

Her gaze flicked from his face to his crotch, the bulge in his pants that could have been a trick of the fabric, except that as she stared, he grew harder. Her tongue flicked over her teeth, and he thrilled. This was really going to happen, and it was about time.

"I don't have time for distractions," she said, and he sighed.

"Well, that's fair," he said. "I've been told I can be pretty distracting. And I certainly wouldn't make it quick."

She took a step towards him, and then another, until she was close enough that he could wrap his hand around her ankle if he wanted. Instead, he waited. She bent, a graceful arc until her face was close to his, her braid slithery down to brush against his shoulder. "When I decide it's time," she said, "there will be no distractions."

Arthur slid a hand around the base of her skull and drew her down into a searing kiss. She kissed with all her teeth, her tongue hot and slippery in his mouth, and when she drew back, she took his lower lip with her, teeth sharp and pulling him after her until he hissed.

He licked the taste of her off of his lips as she straightened, half looking for the taste of blood. There was a flavor he couldn't recognize, something sharp and almost electric. Magic, he had to assume.

"You're sure you couldn't spare a night?" he asked, fully expecting her answer.

She patted him condescendingly on the cheek, which did nothing to calm his cock, and went to the circle. He watched her for a while, letting himself calm down, before he started his own fire, and his watch.

This night, it was bats, screaming out of the darkness towards Arthur's head. They avoided the circle as if it were capped in glass, but their rage was only encouraged by the barrier, and one snatched Arthur up and flew him high above the crashing waves. He thrashed in the clawed grasp until it loosened and he sagged in its grip, the needles of stone at the base of the cliffs lurching up towards him. The reaction time Excalibur gave him did nothing to ease his way out of this.

On the cliff, the stone circle shone with a pale light, the Mage dark in the center as she moved in her spiral, the bats screaming and diving, the force of their clicks almost a physical blow, even from this distance. But they weren't able to attack the Mage directly, and when she was done, she could hopefully manage it herself.

Arthur glanced down, trying to judge the depth of the water, turned to a plain of obsidian by the night, then flailed upwards with Excalibur, severing the foot the bat held him with so he plunged into the water. He kept his body as straight as he could, arm held fully out to keep Excalibur far from him at the impact, but the landing was like hitting solid ground anyway.

His ankles and knees screamed with pain, but that was nothing to the panic. Excalibur was not in his hand. Blood flowed from his head when he jerked around, looking for the blade. He thrashed his way to the surface, sucked in a desperate breath and dove, kicking out as powerfully as he could to where Excalibur sank in the depths, silver as a fish and just as willful, dancing out of his reach as he pursued it. When his lungs were screaming as badly as his legs, his eyes burning with sea salt, blood still haloing his head, his hand closed on the hilt, around another set of fingers, cool enough to burn.

He squinted at the Lady, trying to see past the cloud of dark hair that billowed around her face. "Protect her," she said in her queer voice, the rushing of water, the pressure of depth. 

Arthur didn't bother to dignify that with a response, just twisted in the water to kick to the surface. He broke through to the air just feet from the needles of stone and twisted quickly, trying to avoid being crushed to them, or to be cut open by Excalibur. Struggling with the tide, he sheathed Excalibur, then let the waves throw him against the rock. When the water drew out again, he began to climb.

It was hard going, slippery as the devil and harder to see, and his entire body was a mass of pain by the time he was half way up. Even as he had climbed higher than the constant wash of seawater, the rock had not grown drier. The spray threw up higher than he could have imagined.

When he finally crawled over the edge, he half-suspected he had died in the fall and this was his punishment. He'd heard of the Greek Sisyphus, who, along with his boulder, had been dragged up the coast by the Romans, plunderers that they were. The legend has always struck him as a failure of imagination; if he'd been told to push a boulder up a hill for eternity, he simply wouldn't. Arthur was not prone to following orders he disliked, and had trouble respecting those who did. But this; this he could see as an unending punishment. Striving always to reach one who needed him, feeling his body fail and knowing that it couldn't, that there was no _option_ but to keep climbing... this, he could see as an eternal punishment.

So when he dug his hand into grass instead of stone, it took him a moment to realize, a long enough moment that he had already pulled himself over the edge before he knew he had reached it. He took a moment to blink at the situation, and then struggled to his feet, hand settling at Excalibur's hilt but not drawing. Wearily, he strode towards the circle, but stopped outside its bounds, the leathery wing of a bat crumpling under his foot. The beasts surrounded the circle, dead without injury, and the Mage lay in the center, shivering.

He crossed the line of stones with no little trepidation, but was not struck dead. When he reached the Mage, he went to his knees, the descent hard and almost uncontrolled. The black sludge ran down her cheeks again, and this time when he wiped it away, he rubbed her fingers together.

It was dirt. A thin mud, rich and dark, and sure to grow green things. And it was streaming from her eyes like tears.

Grunting, he pulled her head into his lap and worked on cleaning her face as she clutched at the wet fabric of his pants, her shivers violent, her eyes faintly luminescent. "You couldn't have taken me out for something fun, could you," he grumped gently, chafing blood back into her hands.

"Get... me... out," she demanded, her voice ragged, and Arthur slowly, painfully, stood, pulling her up behind him and slinging her arm over his shoulders.

They walked together, her feet dragging in the grass, until they crossed the line of stones, and it was like an enormous weight had been lifted from her. She shook off the exhaustion between one step and the next, and turned to him, one hand going to his brow. He winced as she probed at what turned out to be a long cut parallel to his eyebrow, still bleeding down his face and into his collar.

"Sit down," she said, and he didn't bother to argue. Her shaking had eased but not stopped entirely, he noticed as she pulled his shirt off and mixed a poultice. After the kiss earlier, he wanted to tease, wanted to flirt, but he was too exhausted. He couldn't think of anything to say; he was just grateful that he had survived, that _she_ had survived. He felt like every inch of him had been beaten, and judging by the bruises rising dark and swollen, he had been. It wasn't as bad as his last visit to the island, but that was only because it wasn't over yet. He had no doubt it would get worse.

She worked the poultice into his cuts, on his arm, on his forehead, one he hadn't noticed, crossing his chest, right over his heart. When she was done, she pulled her own cloak around him, leaving his shirt to dry by the fire, and settled against his chest, her back hot against his sea-chilled flesh. He tugged the cloak tighter around the two of them, hunching over her and burying his nose in her hair. She smelled of earth, deep and rich and ready for growing.

"I don't like bats," he said finally, into her ear.

"No one likes bats," she agreed, voice thick with exhaustion.

\--

In the morning, his shirt was still damp, and Arthur put it on with a shudder. When he was dressed, he handed the Mage her cloak back and she swept it around her shoulders in a shift movement before pulling close to him and running gentle fingers over his brow.

"You'll scar," she told him.

"Will it make me dashing?" he asked, letting himself sag so his forehead rested on hers.

"I think, for kings, it's called _noble_," she said, fingers scratching at the base of his skull.

"As long as you like it," he said, nearly purring.

She was quiet for a long moment, though she did not draw away. Finally, she said, "You got it while helping me."

He couldn't tell if that was guilt he heard, or pride. He had been her creature for a long time now, at least since she filled him with poison and sent him into Camelot, but he was marked as such now. He was hers, and everyone would know it. At this rate, he might have to marry her, if only because the nobles would fuss that his loyalties were split otherwise. They weren't split; they were hers.

"Hey, you should be Queen," he told her and she scoffed.

"You will not trap me under stone," she said, but fondly.

"Not even with a crown?" he asked, equally fond.

"Especially not with a crown," she said. "We must go."

Reluctantly he pulled back and looked at her, her face drawn and pale in the thin morning light. "Two more?" he said.

She nodded. 

He slung his pack on his shoulder as she hefted hers and they began their walk into the rising sun. "When we're done with this," he said, "I'm taking a bath. For a week. If Bedivere wants anything out of me, he can bring it to me in the baths. With food that hasn't been salted."

"The height of luxury," she said.

"We have soaps that smell like flowers," he told her, tempting. "In a good way too, they're ridiculously expensive. The ones we used at the bawdhouse were a bit hard on the nose."

"You won't tempt me with soaps," she said.

"You have to let a man try," he said. "It's all I've got going for me out here away from my castle and coffers."

"And how are the coffers?" she asked. "I saw that you have been making ..._friends_ with Vikings."

"I used to like money," he told her mournfully. "I could make coins multiply like magic."

"And now?"

"Taxes," he said. "I spent so much time dodging them. And now I have to levy them. Seems wrong in a whole host of ways."

"Poor you," she said, and when he threw a disbelieving glance at her, her face was drawn into mocking. It was the most expression he'd ever seen her wear, and it was aimed directly at his expense. That seemed right, actually.

He had to laugh. "Poor little king," he agreed. "At least the Syrens haven't started offering me deals about it. _You know the price," _he mimicked.

"They've survived many good kings," the Mage said. "I'm sure they'll survive you. Have they been in your dreams?"

"Oh, not since the first week," he said. "They left me alone after I took a trip down there to talk it over with them. Like I always say, why have enemies when you can have friends?"

"They are no worse of friends than the Vikings," the Mage agreed.

"Queen Boudicca," he said. "The Second, obviously."

"No," she said. "To both."

"She was about as dangerous as you," he wheedled. "A good, strong name."

"I would not seek war," she said. 

"Neither did she," he rejoined.

"But it found her regardless. I hope to avoid it, from here on out."

"How old are you?" he asked and she looked at him, brows drawn in disbelief. "I heard mages age differently," he said defensively. "Is it true?"

"_Humans_ age differently," she said. "With magic, time is not so simple a path."

"How much older than me are you?" he pressed, grinning. "Mordred fought in the time of my father, and you were old enough to make a deal."

She sighed. "Say... a human ages as a river flows. One direction only. A mage walks in that river. Back and forth, up and down. It flows around us, it tugs us, but it does not overwhelm us."

"Are there more of you?" he asked, knowing the answer would hurt her.

"Not many," she said, as easily as she'd once told him that his uncle had killed her people. Practice, he assumed, rolling the thought over and over in that river of time she was not caught up in, until it was as smooth as any river stone, tumbled until the sharp edges had smoothed.

But he was sure that when she picked it up she could still find a cutting edge.

"If you return the Darklands to their old glory," he said, slow enough that she could stop him if she wanted, "they'll come back, won't they? Those that are left?"

She looked away from him. "That is my hope," she admitted. "If I wipe Mordred from the world, eventually his effects will follow."

Arthur licked his lips, trying to find the right words. He'd never been much for comforting, had always preferred actions over words. "It's a good goal," he tried, feeling the inadequacy in every word.

"I am," she started, sounding deeply pained, "grateful. For your help."

"It was never a question," he admitted, feeling that he had to, since she wouldn't stop _thanking_ him. "You're my mage."

She looked at him, brows drawn together, studying him. When her face smoothed, he suspected she'd understood _everything_ he'd meant. But he hadn't been hiding it, so it was only a relief. He wanted her by his side, whatever form that had to take.

"I will not stay in Camelot," she said slowly. "But, that does not mean I cannot visit."

"You could write, too," he said, greedy as always for more, for as much as he could get. 

She grunted something that was nothing like an agreement, but neither was it a flat refusal. "The future is not here yet," she said. "We must get there first."

"Oh, you're going to be an awful correspondent," he said. "That's fine, you have other redeeming traits."

The Mage didn't dignify that with a response, which was fair, honestly.

\--

Night came faster on the eastern side of the island, the light caught and held by the peak and tower at the center of the island. Arthur's arm ached, but the Mage's bandages had held, and he hadn't quite bled through. His bruises ached, but they would heal. This night, she built a bonfire in the center of the stone circle, using up all of their remaining wood and tinder. It would lighten their packs for tomorrow, but it made Arthur nervous. He didn't like to depend on the island for anything. It seemed a good way to die badly.

But the light of bonfire spread past the stones, and lit the eyes of the snake the Mage had called for battle. She hissed, her mouth bigger than Arthur, and he kept Excalibur sheathed.

"It's good to see you," the Mage said, walking from the circle to face the snake, her eyes her own, pupils round and familiar. "Will you watch us tonight?"

The snake lowered her great head until her tongue flickered over the Mage's face, whisper quiet. The Mage closed her eyes and held still, allowing the snake to scent her thoroughly. When the snake turned away, she didn't go far, looping herself in heavy coils around the stones, leaving only the smallest space for Arthur. The Mage patted the scaled flank, solid as any stone wall and much more dangerous, before heading back into the circle.

Arthur leaned himself against one of the stones, Excalibur beside him, though it seemed unlikely he would need it. As effective as the sword was, there was nothing quite as intimidating as a snake the size of a... honestly, the snake was bigger than anything he'd ever seen. He had nothing to compare it to. Though he'd heard the Vikings had a snake that ringed the world, and they were probably related.

He let the Mage's chanting wash over him, her voice low and sibilant, the words harsh, and when the stones lit with their unearthly luminescence, the one he was leaning against warmed against his back.

With the snake standing guard, there was no attack, but the Mage stumbled out as if she'd been stabbed. She was shaking from head to toe, lurching and unable to catch her balance, sweat standing out in pearls on all the skin he could see. The mud of Avalon ran from her eyes and ears, her nostrils. She looked dead and unburied. She looked chewed up and spat out.

He rushed to catch her as the stones flared and faded, helping her to the ground. "I've got you," he said, wiping the mud from her cheek. "I've got you." He pressed the water skin to her lips and she drank greedily, then coughed and spat up a mouthful of dirt. Grimacing, she swished a mouthful of water, rinsing the rest of the mud from her teeth. She let herself lean against him, her forehead coming to rest on the front of his shoulder.

"What's happening?" he asked softly.

She shook her head without lifting it from his shoulder. "I am no Merlin," she said, like it was a title and not a person. "Nor the Lady of the Lake."

"They're not doing this," Arthur said, unwilling to hear her disparage herself. "You are. If they're so great, they can come and get it done themselves."

"They can't," the Mage said. She said nothing more, just breathed raggedly into his shoulder. Arthur wrapped an arm around her shoulder, trying to calm her shaking.

"Then they're nothing, next to you," he said, which was probably laying it on a bit thick, but Merlin had done nothing for him, and the Lady of the Lake had done only a little bit more. He wasn't highly impressed with either of them, and certainly not compared to the Mage, who had fought and bled to put his ungrateful arse on the throne, and was now doing more to restore her own home.

Her back shook harder under his arm and he clutched her tighter until he realized it was laughter. He'd never heard her laugh before, and he pulled back to see her face. He needed to; he needed to know what she looked like, when she was laughing. He needed it more than he'd ever needed anything. Christ, the girls would give him hell for getting all sappy over a woman, no matter how powerful she was. 

Laughing, on her, looked almost like crying. Earth still seeped from her eyes, ears, nostrils, smeared like warpaint after battle. It wasn't happy. It wasn't _anything_ he knew how to understand. It could have been fury, or pain, or joy. Even split with emotion, she was unreadable, aggressively so. 

Arthur had always been selfish. He kissed her, trying to swallow all of those emotions he couldn't read, and mostly swallowing dirt instead. She surged into him, pushing him onto his back, knees holding tight to his hips, back hunched under his hands like a cat's. He'd kissed her because he wanted to consume her, but found himself the one consumed. She devoured him. She swallowed him whole. Between her and the snake, she was the more dangerous by far.

She scrabbled his shirt open, dull nails scratching at his bruised chest, ungentle, swallowing his hisses, and he pushed up into her hands. Better to hurt at her touch than from the lack of it. But when she hiked her dress up and yanked his pants down, grinding her wet cunt against his hip, he was soft.

She stopped. "You don't want this," she breathed into his jawline, one hand tracing the line above his brow.

"This has never happened to me before," he said, staring up at the night sky, the moon full and bright enough to cast shadows.

"Ah," she said, pulling away from him, her movements gone brusque and sharp.

He caught her wrist, pulled her back on top of him. "I didn't say _stop_," he said. "I might just have lost too much blood yesterday."

She rubbed her cheek on his chest, and he pushed his chin down on the top of her head, wrapping an arm around her back. She was with him. They were both alive. "I can still get you off?" he offered.

She snorted, a puff of air against his collarbone. Then, "Yes."

He slid a hand up her skirts, taking his time and enjoying the exploration. She lifted her hips to give him more space to work, and it made the tendons stand out in her thighs. Her curls were thick and coarse, and beneath them she was slick and smooth, heat radiating from her. He slipped his fingers along her labia a few times, gathering up her slick and enjoying the way it began to run down his wrist. When she made a small noise of annoyance, he laughed quietly. "No _patience_," he teased, and slid his longest finger home.

She sighed, a gusty sound of contentment, but didn't start to move until his thumb started working at her clit, slipping through the mess of slick. Her hips jerked, tiny, abortive movements, and she mewled little punched out gasps into his chest until she bit down above his heart, above the scabbed up cut, her walls pulsing around his finger.

When she relaxed, he pulled his hand out from her skirts, wiped it on the grass and wrapped his other arm around her. "Stay with me," he said. It wasn't a command. More of a wish. When they were done here, when she had Avalon back, he did not want her to forget him.

She said nothing, but neither did she move.

They slept like that, tangled together behind the walls of the snake's coils.

\--

The snake followed them to the final circle, at the top of the tower, at the center of the island. Nothing pursued them, nor assaulted them. The only enemy was the island itself, the towering difficulty of the rock-faces, the slippery slopes of bone. The Mage was silent and hard faced, climbing with a kind of steely determination that gave not hint her hands were dark with a sort of bloody earth, seeping from under her nails.

Arthur was grateful to their speed; if they moved any slower, he was certain she would start growing roots. He'd been keeping up a constant stream of chatter about any and everything, from taxes and bills (tedious, best left to Bedivere and Kay), to the mysteries of magic (did she think she could make it so that everyone who walked into Camelot immediately walked back out?), to his plans once they were done (some sort of meal that would get him beheaded, if the nobles knew what he was using their money for), and none of it managed to get a reaction. 

This time, the tower didn't cause him as much dread, save for her. There were no wolves in pursuit, and the snake had settled once more around the circumference of circle, leaving them as safe as they could be while Avalon was still the Darklands.

The Mage went to her knees in the center of the circle, and with a wave of her hand lit a fire, burning nothing but casting off a heat immense enough to force Arthur back a step. He hovered as close as he could, watching her hands shake as she prepared her powders, voice rolling out of her like a landslide.

When she began to walk her spiral, the stone cracked and split under her feet, grass reaching eagerly through the fissures. The stones began their glow, growing brighter with every step she took until Arthur had to squint against the glare. She was a shadow, stark against the brilliant light, but her shape was changing before his eyes. Branches sprouted from her head, spiraling into a crown of antlers. Roots trailed from her feet, crawling across the stone, butting up against Arthur's feet, weaving over and through them, until he was as firmly held as if he was shackled in place.

Her voice, deep and resonant, peeled through the air. The pressure in the air was almost unbearable, and if Arthur weren't sure he'd be covered by roots in the work of a moment, he would have gone to his knees. As it was, he pressed his hands tight over his ears, jaw working, fighting back a scream.

Until everything snapped.

Darkness dropped, so thick and complete that Arthur couldn't even see spots. Silence reigned, not only the absence of sound but the negation of it. He couldn't even hear the heart he could feel beating in his ears. All the hairs on his arms stood up, searching for any sort of sensation, and then a smell reached him.

Grass. Fresh and green. Next came a tang of sweat, sour with the weight of fear. Something woody.

Slowly, the world returned.

The moon slowly lit the circle before him, so changed from what it had been that he had to blink, confused. The altar was sundered, the floor shattered and thrust into great rivers of stone, pushed up at sharp angles by the forest that had pushed up to create a grove of pale beech trees, here at the center of Avalon.

He couldn't see the Mage, but he could hear her, great shuddering breaths, pain, or panic, or both, and he followed that through the tight press of slender trunks until he found her at the edge of the circle, twisted up in a thick trunk of white wood, pale face visible through a wide bole. 

"I've got you," he said, framing her face with his hands and pressing a swift kiss to her lips. "Don't worry, I've got you."

"I can't _breathe_," she said. He reached for his short knife and started chopping at the wood covering her throat. Sap rolled down the trunk in thick beads, dark as blood in the moonlight, and she cried out. "It _hurts,_" she said, voice tight and hard.

He stopped his cutting and stood there, knife dangling from his hand. "What should I do?" he asked, terror making his voice dull.

She closed her eyes for a long moment. "Leave me," she said. "Return to Camelot."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No, not without you."

"_Leave_," she said. "I cannot free myself. And you cannot free me. Mages will return to Avalon now, and one of them may be able to release me."

"The Lady of the Lake told me to protect you," he said, sinking to sit against her trunk. "I'm not leaving you."

"You are _king_," she said, voice as sharp as a lash. "You do not have the _luxury_ of grief. Get to your feet."

"How do you plan to make me?" he asked, resting his head against the smooth wood where her hip should have been.

Her leaves rustled in the dead air, her fury palpable. "I am nothing," she said. "I am nameless, you will _not_ undermine this sacrifice."

"Maeve," he said, and she fell silent. "That's what I think your name should be. You are not nothing. You never were."

When she sighed, he could almost feel the breeze. "Please," she said quietly. "I would not have you trapped here with me."

"We can talk about it in the morning," he said. "But I'm not leaving you tonight."

He didn't plan to leave her in the morning, either, but she didn't need to know that.

It turned out he wasn't the only hiding something; he fell asleep among her roots, and woke in the throne room of Camelot. When he realized what she'd done, he started throwing things and kept going until Bedivere, wrapped in a crimson night robe, arrived and wrestled him to the ground.

"Tell me," Bedivere demanded.

Arthur panted into the flagstones for a moment before he gathered himself. He spat, "She turned into a damn tree and sent me back against my will."

"Is that all?" Bedivere asked, and Arthur thrashed again in rage. "No, no, hush, there's someone here to see you, someone who saw this coming."

"Another mage?" Arthur asked, hope springing to his throat. 

"Not just any mage," Bedivere said, getting creakily to his feet and pulling Arthur up with him. "Merlin. He'll get the Mage back on her feet."

\--

Merlin wasn't exactly what Arthur had expected. For one thing, he didn't look like a mage, he looked like a blacksmith, and a tall one. He towered even above Bedivere, with arms as thick and hard as iron.

"The Lady sent me," he said, yawning. Arthur had barged into his quarters and found him reading in bed, waiting. "And anyone with any magic could feel what she did. Avalon is whole again." He sounded almost awed.

"No thanks to you," Arthur said.

"I thought it was impossible," Merlin admitted easily. "I was wrong. Your mage, once she blooms, might take my title, should she want it."

"Once she blooms? What the hell does that mean?"

Merlin yawned again, wider, showing all of his teeth, stained yellow. "Exactly what it sounds. She worked great magic. She needs a season or two to recover. Come spring, her trunk will split and put her out. Let her rest," he said. "We all need rest sometime."

\--

When the winter snows melted, Arthur took the court to Avalon to wait for spring. It was as beautiful as she had promised, but he had no eyes for anything but her. She slept in her trunk, so he brought her flowers and baskets of food, arranged them around her roots, anything he thought she might like when she stepped from her slumber.

He was teaching Blue how to turn a dagger on its owner when the sound of cracking wood split the air. Immediately he dropped his blade and whirled to the Mage's tree. A fissure ran down the center of the trunk, from her chin to the ground, and her eyes were open. He rushed to her, prying his fingers into the crack and pulling with all his strength.

"I hope you didn't stay here all this time," she said as the crack grew wider.

"Not all," he grunted, and her fingers appeared by his own, smooth and white from lack of sun, and then, with a scream, the trunk sundered and she stumbled out, naked and new-born, sap covering her trembling body. Each step was tentative, her feet soft and flinching from the ground.

Blue handed her a cloak of brilliant blue, Arthur too busy running his hands over her sticky arms and neck and face, making sure she was whole and real. "It's good to see you," he breathed.

"Call me Maeve," she said. "I liked that one."

"Maeve," he said. "It's good to see you." He wrapped her in a tight hug, and slowly, she returned it.


End file.
